


Not Enough Time In The World

by cellywelly



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Office, Depression, Drug Use, M/M, global drug crisis, sex under some influence but it's totally consensual, time dilation drugs, very mildly implied anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-05 16:51:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16371425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cellywelly/pseuds/cellywelly
Summary: "time is a commodity, and baekhyun and jongdae are addicted to it."





	Not Enough Time In The World

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't complete yet but it works for now as a oneshot/prologue and i wanted to post what i had so far for the prompter
> 
> dedicated to the prompter (u are the only reason i didn't give up on this like...immediately and i hope u like it) and to the mods, because you guys have been generally great and flexible and understanding. also dedicated to g for letting me cry about writing to u
> 
> warnings: implied depression, sex under influence, drug use

Baekhyun sighs as his alarm blares right next to his head, tearing through whatever he’d just been dreaming about. He’s already forgotten; he rarely dreams the kind of dream worth remembering anyway. As he blinks his eyes open slowly, a deep sense of fatigue creeps up on him and settles in his bones. The feeling seems inescapable lately. He really can’t remember the last time he’s woken up feeling refreshed, weeks and months of sleep deprivation too much to ever catch up on at this point. 

A glance at his phone tells him it’s seven thirty in the morning and he groans, rolling over to squish his face into his favorite gray pillow. It used to be white, but the cover’s been washed so many times it’s faded to an odd, dull color that he just decides to call gray.

He really should change it. 

There’s a knock at his door that startles him, and he curses silently; Kyungsoo always knocks so _sharply_. Baekhyun is convinced he does it intentionally to scare him awake, like jumpstarting a car but with his brain instead, since they both know Baekhyun is prone to rolling over and going back to sleep.

“Baekhyun! Get up, you’re going to be late for your class again,” Kyungsoo calls through the door, knocking again, even louder this time.

Baekhyun just whines loudly in response. He’s more zombie than human most mornings anyway, and it shows as he shuffles tiredly to their rickety little bathroom to shower and brush his teeth and nearly bumps into every nook and cranny on the way there.

“You really need to start sleeping more,” Kyungsoo grumbles as he slides a fresh omelet onto Baekhyun’s plate. God, if it weren’t for Kyungsoo, Baekhyun is pretty sure he’d be genuinely dead by now. Or at the very least, failing out of university, since Kyungsoo seems to care more about Baekhyun’s education than Baekhyun himself.

“I can’t-“

“Don’t give me any of that ‘I can’t’ bullshit. If you organized yourself a little, you wouldn’t need to cram in so many late night assignments-”

Baekhyun sighs because it is _too_ fucking early for this and he is this close to faceplanting right into his omelet. Kyungsoo seems to notice this because he falls silent, but Baekhyun can still feel his stare boring holes into the side of his face, probably accompanied by the concerned little frown Kyungsoo always seems to wear when he looks at Baekhyun lately.

Baekhyun looks up from his place and forces a grin.

“This isn’t half bad, but next time I want a ketchup smiley face and-“ he cuts off when the ketchup bottle nearly collides with his face, making him laugh as Kyungsoo rolls his eyes.

“I’m not putting that chemical shit on my homemade breakfast, thank you very much. If you want a smiley face make your own damn food for once.”

Baekhyun sticks his tongue out, mouth still full of half-chewed food. It makes Kyungsoo gag and yell, and Baekhyun narrowly escapes getting hit upside the head as he runs off to his room, ignoring Kyungsoo’s shouts that he’d better clear his plate or else. Baekhyun thinks it’s worth risking a few minor injuries if it means clearing some of the pervasive heaviness lingering in their apartment.

“You love me too much to murder me, bye Soo!” Baekhyun shoots, quickly tugging on his shoes and running out the door before something else is thrown at his head for his cheekiness.

Once in the ugly hall of their crappy apartment, he sighs and rubs his face, wondering distantly if it’s too late for him to skip his Marketing class. He hates it, though that isn’t saying much; he hates all his classes lately. All this work for a degree he doesn’t care about, but needs if he wants to avoid starvation in the near-future. He figures, though, that Kyungsoo’s gone to all this effort to chase him out the door so he might as well actually go to class for once. On his way out of their student-budget-friendly apartment building, someone bumps into him hard and he nearly falls over from the force of it. He turns, ready to yell at them for not paying any attention, but falters when he sees them standing still, staring vacantly into space. 

Baekhyun swallows his words and shrugs his backpack back into place. He looks away and curses when he catches sight of his wristwatch, the minutes ticking down the time until he’s late for his class. 

He is late, but somehow only by a few minutes as he slides into his usual (is it really his usual if he skips every other class?) seat. The rest of the day drags on with Baekhyun struggling to stay awake through his four hours of lectures, all spaced out enough that he only ends up finishing around 5PM, but at least he gets a little work done in the library for once. Kyungsoo would be proud. 

Actually, Kyungsoo would probably roll his eyes at Baekhyun for being so pleased with himself for doing the bare minimum. He might do more, but when he gets up for some much-needed coffee he fumbles the plastic lid and ends up spilling half the drink over himself. It’s the first time he’s grateful that the instant coffee machine in the library is incapable of producing anything hotter than ‘lukewarm’. Still, his eyes prickle and all of the stress he’d been working to avoid the whole evening catches up to him at once, so he decides to pack up and go home before he has a breakdown in the library. Besides, it’s getting to that time on a Friday where a lot of the library’s occupants are high, and their vacant stares as they scribble too-quickly in their notebooks only adds to Baekhyun’s stress.

Exhausted, he decides to go home. He falters in the doorway of his dorm, vacant because Kyungsoo left to visit his family this weekend. He doesn’t want to be alone with himself tonight, but all his friends are busy.

Baekhyun really should stay in and work on that assignment due in a few days, review the day’s, the _week’s_ lectures that he hasn’t processed yet at all, or any number of productive things. This year, though, his love for his subject’s died a quick, painful death now that the novelty has worn off and all he feels is stress and anxiety creeping up his throat whenever he so much as looks at one of his textbooks.

So he doesn’t. Instead, he downs over half a bottle of wine because it’s a Friday night, so it _is_ the weekend. He changes into something that makes him feel good and heads off to a nightclub he’s wanted to visit for a while now. The music is loud, the beat seeming to resonate in him, and he likes it. He lets the fuzziness of his head carry him through it, no particular coordination to his movements. He just… dances. He forgets about the stress of a horrible day, week, month. Someone buys him a drink and he feels reckless so he downs it, everything even more fuzzy now, head spinning just this side of _drunk_. It feels incredible, like he’s floating while he dances, free. Then someone hands him a little blue pill and he isn’t sure if it’s the flashing lights, the alcohol or the handsome stranger’s curly smile that prompts him to swallow it, but he does. 

Everything slows down. Baekhyun blinks down at his hand and moves it, feels like he’s moving through water, feels like he’s _floating_ , all his senses somehow blurred around the edges. The handsome stranger is still there, smiling at him. The smile swims in and out of focus, but Baekhyun knows it’s beautiful. He spends what feels like whole minutes just standing there, taking everything in, but by the time he’s stepping forwards to take the stranger’s face between his hands hardly anyone around him has moved. 

They kiss, and the feeling makes Baekhyun’s toes curl in his shoes. Everything is soft, so soft, and he feels like he has all the time in the world to just enjoy the slide of their lips together, the hot press of the stranger’s tongue against his. There are hands around his waist and then they’re sliding lower, gripping at his hips and _oh_ , Baekhyun never wants this to stop. So when the stranger pulls away and leaves a wet, burning trail of kisses along his jaw, towards his ear, and murmurs a delicious (somehow, even his voice feels good) “my place?” he can only nod eagerly.

They take their time, clothes dropping to the floor of the stranger’s apartment piece by piece, palms sliding over smooth skin. Everything is a little dulled around the edges and it makes Baekhyun press closer, scrape his teeth over the stranger’s stomach as he kisses down it, wanting to feel more and more and more. He sucks the man’s cock into his mouth and it earns him gentle fingers tangling in his hair and a string of breathy, gasped praise as he works his head up and down slowly. He’s pulled up eventually, into more insistent, toe-curling kisses, into a whispered “you good?” when the stranger presses a finger into him, then two then three. 

Heat slides like honey down Baekhyun’s spine as he’s worked open slowly, carefully, the perfect drag of fingers inside of him making him tremble with the dull, near-constant fizz of pleasure in his tummy. It’s good, so good, but it’s not enough and it makes Baekhyun want to cry because he feels like he could do this forever but he wants _more_.

“Jongdae…” he breathes when he finally sinks down on the stranger and oh, when had he learned his name?

“So good, baby. You’re so good.”

He’s pulled close against a warm chest and he can’t stop moaning now, every motion making his nerves tingle. His eyes are wet and his thighs are shaking, burning from how long they go at it, slow warmth radiating like waves through his body. When he cums, he feels it all over, pleasure sparkling from his cock all the way to his fingertips and making him keen and whimper. It seems to go on forever and he shakes and whines in his partner’s lap, overwhelmed. There are soft lips against his neck, hands at his hips to move him through it and Baekhyun moans and shudders when he feels Jongdae finish too with a muffled groan.

When Baekhyun wakes up the next morning, he’s naked, _starving_ and definitely not in his own bed. His head feels like someone is battering his skull with a jackhammer. Everything from the night before feels blurry, the memories playing in his head like damaged film reel, but he does remember. 

“You’re awake.”

The sudden purr startles him and he nearly falls off the bed he’s in, pulling a laugh from whoever he slept with last night. Baekhyun rolls over onto his other side to look at them, blinking because wow, those foggy memories really did not do this man justice. The man is laying on his side with his head propped up by his hand, smiling as he watches Baekhyun take everything in.

The room is _gorgeous_. It’s the kind of room Baekhyun always assumed existed only on tv or in magazines. It’s definitely nothing like the gray, dingy little box he calls a bedroom, with its cracked plaster and peeling wallpaper that he was too lazy to re-stick. It would only peel off again anyway. 

“Um- hi?” Baekhyun offers awkwardly, feeling incredibly out of his depth as he sits up.

He immediately regrets the decision when it makes his head pound even more and he hisses, hiding his face behind his hands. It draws another chuckle from the man, whose name Baekhyun either never asked for or doesn’t remember.

“Let me get you something for that,” the man whispers, and Baekhyun is in too much pain to even muster a thank you. 

He does, however, manage suddenly to remember the man’s name, flushing at the foggy memory of his own moans.

Jongdae returns a few moments later with a glass of water and both a paracetamol and an ibuprofen. His boxers are hanging so low on his hips it would be downright _distracting_ if not for Baekhyun’s head, which feels more and more like it’s trying to split itself in two. Baekhyun takes the pills gratefully and swallows them like they're lifelines.

"Dyou know how long this will last?" he asks softly, wincing. He’s never taken time dilation drugs before.

Jongdae smiles at him and Baekhyun is caught off-guard when he cards his fingers through Baekhyun's hair soothingly, like he wants to take care of him. The affection makes Baekhyun’s insides feel warm and a little melty, soothed.

"The painkillers will help, but it might take anywhere between a few hours and the whole day to go away," Jongdae answers before slipping away.

This makes Baekhyun wrinkle his nose because he's never even been a fan of _regular_ hangovers, let alone intense and unpredictable drug-induced ones. Jongdae chuckles and Baekhyun looks up to see him pulling on a clean shirt and doing up the buttons. The shirt looks like it costs half Baekhyun's rent and it suddenly makes him feel incredibly out of place.

"Don't worry." Jongdae coos as he finishes buttoning up his shirt, and Baekhyun is bewildered at how soft his tone is. "I'll be doing some work from today, gotta look after you."

Baekhyun blinks.

"Do you do this for all your one-night stands?" he blurts, laying back down and pulling the duvet around himself like a protective cocoon.  
The affection is nice, but it’s also getting to him and he’s not sure how he’s going to cope when he has to go back out into the real world and be alone again.

Jongdae snorts, looking through his closet for a pair of pants. He pulls them out and Baekhyun wishes he could better remember what Jongdae looked like last night, in what he’s sure must've been some amazingly tight-fitting clothes.

"Not really, no." 

Jongdae smiles mysteriously at Baekhyun and steps towards him, this time to brush a knuckle over his cheek. Baekhyun burrows a little further into the blankets to hide his blush. His head still hurts and it isn’t helping him to think very clearly.

"Go back to sleep. It'll help."

"Okay," Baekhyun mumbles, feeling oddly shy as he watches Jongdae slip out of the room while he’s still naked under his sheets. 

He does, eventually, manage to find a comfortable enough position to fall asleep despite his headache. It helps that laying in Jongdae’s bed feels like laying on a cloud in comparison to his mattress back home. 

By the time he wakes again, the pain has faded down to a bearable ache and he sits up slowly, helping himself to the glass of water by the bed. He slips out of bed and stumbles only slightly before managing to track down his boxers and then the t-shirt he'd worn last night. His phone is in the pocket of his jeans and, predictably, out of battery, so he shuffles slowly out of the room in search of Jongdae.

The rest of the apartment is just as nice as the bedroom. It’s the kind of place Baekhyun doesn't think he'll be ever able to afford, even after he gets his degree and starts working a Real Job. It's difficult, earning this kind of money after the recent economic crash. It’s even harder for the 32% (and counting, according to most news channels) of the population currently hooked on time dilation drugs. Baekhyun wonders what Jongdae does for work as he pads barefoot over the polished hardwood floors, panels cold beneath his feet. 

“You're up.”

Baekhyun startles when he suddenly hears the comment and turns to find Jongdae smiling at him, head peeked around the corner of a doorframe of what Baekhyun assumes must be his in-home office. 

“Yeah.” Baekhyun grins a little awkwardly and holds up his very dead phone. “I wasn't snooping or anything I was, um- do you...have a phone charger I could borrow?”

Jongdae smiles and steps out from his office, eyes raking slowly over Baekhyun's body in a way that makes him shiver, heat fizzling in his tummy.

“Probably. What kind of phone is it?”

Baekhyun glances down at his beat up old Android. It's been through a lot with him, screen shattered more than once when he'd thrown it mid-breakdown, and that one time he’d dropped it half a meter. He should replace it soon, it's gotten super slow. He makes a mental note to figure out how to budget a new phone into his life.

“A micro-USB? Or, well, the charger is.” Looking up, he smiles tentatively. “The phone is… obviously not a USB.”

Jongdae chuckles and disappears into his office, returning a few seconds later with a charger. 

Baekhyun shoots him a grateful smile and plugs in his phone, waiting a moment for the spiderwebbed screen to light up. His phone starts vibrating immediately once it finally does, so many texts coming in it makes everything freeze up for a minute. He does manage to catch some of the sender names.

“Oh- fuck,” he mumbles, looks up when he hears a soft snort from Jongdae.

“Popular, are we?” 

_[8:37 AM] Nerdyeol: Yo baek where u at? We still on for studying today?_

_[8:49 AM] Nerdyeol: its fine if u wanna cancel just reply pls!!_

_[8:54 AM] Soo: Where are you?_

_[9:02 AM] Soo: Baekhyun where are you_

_2 missed calls from Soo, Nerdyeol, Sehun_

_[9:30 AM] Soo: Sehun says he didn’t see you all evening._

_[9:31 AM] Soo: Call me when you see these, I’m worried._

Baekhyun’s heart twists uncomfortably in his chest. It isn’t exactly the first time he’s disappeared for a few hours, lately he finds himself doing that more and more often. But it _is_ the first time he’s been gone a whole night. He feels bad for worrying everyone so much.

"My, um, my friends..." he mumbles. "I didn't really tell anyone I was going out last night." 

His head is starting to hurt again form the phone screen light and he furrows his brows as he types a few clumsy responses, a number of apologies for worrying Kyungsoo and standing Chanyeol up and promises to treat them all to food sometime soon. His hands are shaking by the time he's done and he's not sure why this is hitting him so hard, like waking up in Jongdae's apartment had been some sort of bubble and checking his phone had popped it. Suddenly he's thinking about all of the assignments he still has due this week and the studying he should do if he wants to stay in university. His chest feels tight, and he really doesn't want to call anyone just to get yelled at. 

"Hey." There's a voice, soft and warm in front of him all of a sudden. "It's okay."

When he looks up, Jongdae is covering his hands with his own and then taking his phone gently away, and Baekhyun wonders how a stranger can feel so _comforting_. 

"You haven't eaten yet, have you?" Jongdae smiles. "Let me make you something. I'm hungry too, and food will help you with your head." 

Baekhyun nods mutely and follows Jongdae to his kitchen, settling on a stool so he can watch him cook from his counter. He recalls distantly that he has a test on _Monday_ , the one he was going to study for with Chanyeol, but it feels so nice here. He doesn't want to leave. 

"Last night..." Baekhyun begins, receiving a hum in response as Jongdae cracks a few eggs into a pan. "Um, I was pretty surprised." 

"By?" 

"Um, the time dilation pills. I've never taken any before, everyone’s always saying they’re dangerous…"

Jongdae turns his head so he can peek at Baekhyun over his shoulder, raising a brow.

"So you decided to try them for the first time in a club surrounded by strangers?" 

Baekhyun chuckles sheepishly and shrugs.

"I… was feeling pretty impulsive last night. At least it worked out?" 

He should be more worried about this, he knows, but then Jongdae snorts and adds something to the pan that sizzles deliciously. Baekhyun's mouth waters; he really hadn't realized how hungry he was until Jongdae started cooking. His appetite is usually dead the day after a night of drinking.

"Well." Jongdae pauses, letting the pan sit on the stove for a moment as he turns around and places his palms on the bar, leaning in close to Baekhyun whose eyes widen fractionally.  
"No harm in a little stress relief from time to time, now is there?" He smirks, and Baekhyun swears his brain's just short-circuited. 

Jongdae makes him feel so out of his element, already so bright and fun to Baekhyun’s dull, grey aimlessness. But he dares to lean in and kiss him anyway, grinning when Jongdae pulls away a few moments later and laughs warmly like he’s endeared. Baekhyun feels like maybe if he could just stay with Jongdae, some of his color would rub off on him.

"You're so cute," Jongdae coos. "Come on, let me feed you." 

Twenty minutes later finds them sat together on the couch, Baekhyun’s thigh touching Jongdae’s as he marvels at the high definition quality of the TV while they eat. The food does seem to be helping with his headache; it already hurts even less, only really aching when he moves it too abruptly. They watch half an episode of some tv show Baekhyun doesn’t know before he lifts his head from Jongdae's shoulder, drawing his attention.

“Am I not keeping you from your work?” Baekhyun asks, brows furrowing. 

Jongdae smiles and shakes his head. 

“If anything, you’re being a good influence,” he muses. “My friends are always telling me off for working on weekends anyway. This is a pretty good incentive not to.”

“Come to think of it, I think this is the longest one-night stand I’ve ever had,” Baekhyun remarks, prompting Jongdae to raise a brow playfully.

“You looking to make an escape sometime soon?” 

Baekhyun laughs and shakes his head. He sets his empty plate down on the little glass coffee table in front of them and pulls his bare legs up onto the couch, crossing them. Now one of his legs is half-rested on one of Jongdae’s, but neither of them make to move apart. 

“If anything, I have the opposite problem to you. I should absolutely be studying this weekend, but I’ll take any excuse not to…” 

Jongdae tilts his head.

“You’re a student? What do you study?” 

“Ah, yeah… I study graphic design,” Baekhyun answers, self-conscious suddenly.

Jongdae hums and turns down the TV so they can talk more easily.

“Artistically gifted, are we?” he teases, making Baekhyun laugh a little. “How did you get into that?”

So Baekhyun tells him about how he’s always enjoyed working on aesthetics, designed a few club posters through middle school and into high school where he’d started taking art classes. He answers Jongdae’s questions, so pleased with the way Jongdae seems genuinely interested in what he has to say. It’s the most excited Baekhyun’s felt about his subject in a while. It makes him happy. 

"So out of curiosity…" he starts eventually, once the conversation has died down a little. His legs are across Jongdae’s lap now and he’s tucked comfortably into his side. "What sort of work do you do?" 

Jongdae seems to take a moment to consider the question before shrugging. He slides his fingers idly through Baekhyun’s hair.

"I’m a businessman. I don’t think you’d be very interested in the details, honestly. There’s not many aesthetics involved.”

He grins playfully down at Baekhyun, who snickers.

“Not very artistically gifted, are we?”

Jongdae laughs and nudges Baekhyun gently in the side. Baekhyun retaliates with a little shove to Jongdae’s shoulder and they end up play-wrestling until Baekhyun is pinned beneath Jongdae on the couch, laughing. He wants Jongdae to kiss him, bites his lip. He thinks Jongdae will do it, but then he hears his phone start to ring. Not wanting a repeat of this morning, Baekhyun has to pick up, so Jongdae lets him up and he does. It’s Kyungsoo, checking whether Baekhyun is home yet since he hasn't called yet and reminding him not to forget about his test on Monday. Baekhyun’s bubble pops for the second time that day. 

“Time to go?” Jongdae asks once Baekhyun’s hung up and god, he’s sure he’d never get tired of Jongdae’s voice, rich and deep and smooth like honey.

“If I don’t want to fail out of my degree, then yeah,” Baekhyun sighs, making his way back to Jongdae’s room to gather his things. 

Jongdae watches him wiggle into his skinny jeans with an amused smile.

“Hey.”

Baekhyun looks up, brows raising in silent question.

“I had a lot of fun today.”

Baekhyun blinks, and Jongdae chuckles.

“I’m saying I’d like your number before you run off, Baekhyun. If you want that.” 

Baekhyun’s lips part in surprise, and he thinks distantly that this must be a strange way to meet someone; getting high with a one-night stand. But he’s had a lot of fun too, felt more like his old self than he had in a long while. So his surprise melts into a cheery grin and he nods.

“Yeah. I… I do.” 

He accepts Jongdae’s phone and puts his number into it, daring to kiss Jongdae’s cheek before he slips out the front door. He receives a text moments later.

_You really are too cute._

Baekhyun hides his face behind his phone in the elevator, squealing softly. He smiles the whole way home.

**Author's Note:**

> so basically life happened and i absolutely could not finish this fic on time at all, but i definitely do plan to continue it over time!!! probably as a few (4-5ish) chapters
> 
> I hope that, despite the incompleteness, you were able to enjoy!


End file.
